Sunday, July 18, 2010

Blinkerific

This was an excersise in class to complete a standard blink as a a sort of fallback option if we ever needed a blink in the nick of time.

better to know it and not need it than need it and not know it :D

We were given some standard blink examples taken from masters of animation such as Richard Williams. However i found the examples to be a little lacking. I realised they were meant as a fallback option but with just a little more effort a blink with a little more substance could be achieved in much the same time as any of the standards.


Essentially this blink is made on 24fps with 10 frames for a full cycle from open to close then back to open. I took my inspiration largely from Richard Williams example and then expanded on it slightly.

The eyes take two frames to close however i keep the eyes shut for three frames instead of two. This works mostly on female characters delivering a far softer blink while keeping the blink fast and prevents it from lagging or being sluggish. Also another interesting thing is the shape change which the eyes are closed.

On the 3rd close frame i change the blink shape to an S or "rolling wave" this gave the impression that the pupil beneath the eye had mass and also had an impact on the eyelid. It also causes a very feminine shape change within the face. I further exenterated this quality by giving the lips a small amount of pout.

After the eyes begin to open in much the same way although i kept the method of using the pupil to drive the eyes until the open extreme was reached.

An interesting this i learned through the exercise was while the eyes are closed varying shapes ( assuming your using the 3 frame shut idea ) can have a drastically different effect on the blink. Instead of an S shape if i had made it more of an arrow it would have made her look much angrier. Or if i had made it the shape of a stretched out U she would have looked very sleepy. Essentially the shape of the 3rd eye shut will determine the mood in which she in blinking. So for the sake of one extra frame a lot of character can be added.

seems like a fair trade off in terms of time+output energy=result.

BLINKERIFIC from jackr.animator on Vimeo.

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